I don't spend nearly as much time with GT7 as I used to, but I still feel the urge to weigh in on the update.
I drive on a Thrustmaster T300RS and mainly drive road cars in the game, and my impression on the new physics echo what has already been said many times in this thread: road cars feel better, but race cars feel worse.
The main attraction of the new physics is how gradually tyres let go when at their limits. This especially benefits cars that like a little bit of slip angle in corners, and tricky cars that were almost impossible to drive at speed previously. The ɛ̃fini RX-7 no longer crumbles like a house of cards when trial braking now, and the 917K and Eunos Roadster are just two of many examples of cars that are not only drivable now, but actually
fun! The force feedback on a steering wheel feels more tactile somehow, and tyre rubbing noise feels much more informative and important than previously.
The Fully Customisable Suspension finally lives up to its name now, allowing us to set open diffs seperately for acceleration and deceleration! Whoo!
As for the parts lf the update that aren't as good, I really dislike how brutal rumble strips have become, even on a flat, dry track. Mounting a rumble strip at the apex of a turn seemingly hooks onto the inside wheels of a car and rotates it with great force, almost like how I'd imagine a gutter run is supposed to feel like. I am in no position to say whether this is more or less realistic, but on a purely subjective front, this really takes a lot of the fun out of driving. Even Sophy AI, the shockingly consistent and very fast AI, often lose control of their cars over kerbs now.
Race cars, in particular Gr.3 and above, feels... yuck. Perhaps this isn't a result of the physics change and more so the result of the default suspension and/or aero changes made to these race cars, but every Gr.3 car I drove felt rife with understeer on corner exit, their front tyres (the front inside tyres in particular) screaming in despair as though there is just no weight pressing over them whatsoever.
I think what needs addressing most urgently right now is how weird it feels to drive on a pad. I only drive on a pad when I want to quickly obtain the Daily Workout Marathon gift at Route X on days I can't be bothered to set up my rig, and cars now wobble so badly when returning their steering wheels to the centre now that I don't even want to do that anymore.
Overall, I'd say the update was a huge step in the right direction, with its flaws
most likely being easy to fix. I feel for everyone who has to redo entire garages worth of tuned cars, but the fact that most cars have had a significant PP drop means that the World Circuit events feel less "cheaty" now, as we're now able to more closely match the performance of the opponents' cars.
